CHAPTER II.
THE CAUSES OF THE WAR.
I. Why the Treaty of Bukarest suddenly raised a formidable obstacle to the Pangerman plan.
II. How it was that the internal state of Austria-Hungary drove Germany to let loose the dogs of war.
III. General view of the causes of the war.
Although the Pangerman plan is unquestionably the chief ultimate cause of the war, yet when William II. started it in August, 1914, he did so for nearer and for secondary reasons which we must examine carefully if we wish to have a clear view of events.
I.
Up to 1911, when Tannenberg published the programme of annexations, all previous great events had favoured William II.’s aims; but from 1912 onward events suddenly raised very serious and quite unexpected obstacles to the execution of the Pangerman plan.
In 1912, Italy conquered Libya at the cost of Turkey and against the will and pleasure of Berlin. Again in 1912 Greece, Montenegro, Serbia and Bulgaria became united against the Ottoman Empire; this also was contrary to the will and pleasure of Berlin. What was quite unexpected by the Kaiser’s Staff was the victory of the Balkan peoples over the Turks. As Germany had upheld the latter she felt profoundly humiliated. Then, in order to hinder the foundation of an efficient Balkanic Confederation—that is, one constituted on the principle of a fair balance—Vienna, and above all, Berlin, used as their tool the Tsar Ferdinand’s well-known ambition to establish Bulgarian supremacy in the peninsula. Accordingly instigated by the Germanic powers, the Bulgarians in June, 1913, attacked their allies, the Serbians and Greeks. But once more the Kaiser’s calculations were upset. Roumania, escaping for the first time from German leading strings, intervened against Bulgaria, which was struggling with her former allies, and thus Bulgaria was vanquished. Now, the new condition of things which arose from the Bukarest treaty of August 10th, 1913, suddenly formed a formidable obstacle to the Pangerman scheme in the East, and this is the reason:
The treaty of Bukarest created in the peninsula two groups of states sharply opposed to each other. The first was formed of the beaten and sullen participants in the Balkan wars, Bulgaria and Turkey. The second group was composed of those peoples who had benefited by the wars and were satisfied with the result, to wit, Roumania, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece. These four last states, seeing that their vital interests had become closely bound together by the territorial annexations made at the cost of the common enemy, had joined all their forces to insure the maintenance of the Bukarest treaty which they considered inviolable.